A Very Old Memory

After school at West Junior High I took the bus to West 5th Street. I checked in at the Leeward, where Opal was working behind the bar, talking to Mom and a bunch of other people. The bar was full. The other business owners said the City was threatening to raze all the buildings on the north side of Bridge Street, starting with the corner of Hulbert Hill going all the way to Topky’s Hardware. The other business owners are upset; especially the nice lady with the brand new Scandinavian Gift shop. The Gas-house Gang baseball team members were upset too. Someone suggested getting West 5th street into some kind of Historical Registry so the City couldn’t tear it down. “If we band together, we can save the street.” Mom told them. “We need to give it our best shot.” “This area could become the showplace of Ashtabula,” Pam from Redesign speculated. Everyone laughed at the idea, 5th Street was skid-row, or Redesign wouldn’t be next door. But Mom agreed to research the idea. They decided to call themselves the Harbor Merchants Association. The rest is History.

'Back to the Land' -- What's That?

There are a lot of concepts out there dealing with the 'Back to the Land' movement. There are so many variations on this theme that I want to talk about it here. Jordan's Croft is a hobby farm where I kept my horses chickens and alpacas.

I've got some favorite YouTube channels, like Roots and Refuge and Gold Shaw farm .

I need to say that I was raised on five acres in the 1960s, my father might have quailified as a Doomsday Prepper because we had a basement full of canned food. In addition my Aunt, Uncle and two cousins were part of the Back to the Land movement of the 1970's. I read the Mother Earth News and the Foxfire books in my early teens. So it was natural for me to want five acres of my own even as a kid.

When I got to Kentucky I started looking for a place for my horses, my husband and I found the blank slate of Jordan's Croft in 2005 and have been here ever since.

So here's the topic I want to address: What does it take to go back to the land? Do you have to say goodbye and live in the wilderness, build a log cabin and swear off electricity and flush toliets? Do you have to grow your own food, never setting food in a grocery store again? What markers do we need to hit in order to say we are 'back to the land.'

I don't think it requires a purity test.

I think what matters is finding a connection to living and growing things. Walking in a park, hiking a trail, growing a plant in the windowsill, and even going fishing are all legit activities that take us back to the land.

Feeling connected to the planet, our Mother Earth, is a quest fit for the 21st Century. It does't take a farm in Vermont, or acreage in North Carolina, or a Croft in Kentucky. It takes effort to find places to ground our souls. But finding these outdoor spaces is more critical than ever for human health and sanity. We need to feel -- well -- grounded in order to function.

When I was working full-time with an hour to work and home, I wasn't feeling very grounded. But my time with my horses refreshed me, even when it was just feeding time and few pats.

Now that I spend a hour or so each morning on the porch and puttering around the house, I find it's easier to focus my energy on what needs doing, and my priorities are changing once again.

I've got the time to listen to these podcasts, see how other people set goals and work things out. I watched Geoff Lawton work on his Greening the Desert project for ten years. Then I've seen how a little lady named Abla made amazing progress with her little patch of ground in a desert.

These people make me think about what my Croft means to me, and decide what to do next. My rock garden was a mess, but two years of digging and fussing has made a big difference. My kitchen garden has suffered from neglect, but I've got someone to help with the water situtation, and I intend to have a workable solution for next year.

I can't imagine becoming a Doomsday Prepper. But I can figure out ways to get water to my garden besides using a water hose. I can sell a few eggs on the side to buy rain barrels or an exhaust fan. I can make small improvements that expand my little gardens so I can give some tomatoes to friends.

It all adds up in the end.

Garden in July

Garden Update End of July

Well now, things are looking up in the rock garden area. I’ve been working a few hours a day on that area, and it’s starting to look really nice.

I also put in two small beds, against the house, for herb gardens. Since I’ve had no luck with other plants in that area, I used old horse bedding to fill a raised bed. It might be enough to kick start the plants, but this soil is so dead, from decades of being farmland, that it needs all the help it can get.

As you can see in the photo, the two hosta plants are looking good. They appreciated the new chip mulch. The strawberry plants are alive, and that’s about all I can report. No runners, no flowers. There were larkspur in the spring, and little hyacinths, they all went dormant by July. I’ve got one chamomile plant blooming industiously.

I’ve weeded that area for two years in a row. I dug out two huge clumps of pampas grass in 2022. They were semi-circles of live grass around a center of dead grass. It took all that summer to get it all out. But I got the weeds, mint and grass out of the garden bed and kept puttering in it ever since.

This year, I was able to get wood chips, so I filled the bed with wood chip mulch to keep the weeds down. We’ve got a large number of stepping stones stacked in the garden, and I’ve started putting them down. So there’s a path from the porch to the rock garden.

The dogs love the rock garden, it is shady and cooler than the lawn. Trouble likes to lay in the chips, and nose around the rocks like he’s hunting. Our new pup jumps around the stones, scratching and digging little holes, though her favorite activity is chasing chickens.

This flock of chickens is 18 hens and a Buff rooster. The hens came from an egg farm and have no fear of predators. So in this case, a pup who chases them is a good thing. The pup will teach them to run to the rooster for safety, and he will learn to defend the flock.

I don’t like to let the hens out of their pen, but we’ve got too many slugs in the flower beds, so the hens need to get out enough to clear the yard of slugs.

Sparky the Chevy Bolt - Part 1

I've had a PT Cruiser for many years. I loved that little car. But, alas, it developed electrical problems, and needed to be replaced. After driving such a cute little car for 16 years, it was depressing to look at newer used cars. Cars are expense, they all look alike, and are uninteresting, except for the rare hybrid. But then I stumbled across a 2017 Chevy Bolt.

First, the price was under budget. Second, I could actually plug it into a wall socket for a slow trickle charge. Third, while the lithium batterys are a bit tricky to deal with, my house is full of lithium battery devices. I have a friend who works with automotive tech, and he was very positive about EV cars. And most importantly, I'd been watching Chevy experiment with electric cars since the 1990's. Unlike a certain Tech Guru's brand, Chevy tech is tried and true.

After 24 hours of research, I closed the deal on the Chevy Bolt and brought it home.

Serious reflection on my first week with Sparky.

I knew going into this that getting charged was gonna be interesting. And it has been. Swope Toyota in E'town has been gracious about us charging there. Bob bought his RAV4 there. We have breakfast and charge Sparky at the same time. This time it was 12 hours, but there's a software switch I can throw to charge faster.

McDonalds in Radcliff was not so gracious. They said their charging station was exclusively for the Manager's car. Interesting...

Freddy's Custard stand has a Tesla Charger, which is likely why their manager keeps his Tesla Cyber Truck parked there. Handy, that.

Next week I'm going to look on Fort Knox to see what kind of charging stations they have. There are 8 stations at one location and 4 stations at another.

Toyota has a ChargePoint charger, so I have that on my phone. So right now, I'm gonna keep to that one software.

Sparky's software claimed that a full charge is 250 miles. This is about 2 weeks travel for me. So if we charge every Monday, I should always have about 200 miles of range.

There are several Blink chargers listed on Google, Kayla Anderson found them, but I haven't figured out where they are physically yet. So this is what I've learned in my first week of owning Sparky, the Chevy Bolt.

Let's see what next week brings.

More on the Garden

I've been planning more with the garden, collecting items for the next step in construction.

I've got four young Moscovie hen ducks who are laying up a storm. But my barn is still stuffering from a rodent infestation. Baby birds don't have much of a chance against any kind of predators. It's not a good idea to raise them in the barn.

But I can raise them in pens, outside the barn. I did it before, had great success raising both ducklings and chicks.

This is the new idea. Collect up some fence panels, get a water barrel, and put the momma ducks and babies close to the house, but far from the barn. Double fence the low pens, give each hen ducks some space and let the ducklings grow up.

I'm gonna need to get a rainwater source. Make a new rain barrel, and have everything ready by the time the duck eggs hatch. Should be August, if I remember correctly.

Start with a rain barrel. Get the fence panels down to the garden, with the gate and some posts. Fix the old pen panels, find stakes to hold the pens together, then shade the pens from the hot July sun.

I have 30 days to get this together. Let's see if I can make it happen.

Garden Projects

These days, I haven’t got the strength or the energy of my youth. So I pick my projects carefully. Riding a horse once a week has brought back a measure of my old strength, and ambition. Since I laid my old horses to rest, my pastures have been empty, the grass too high and the farm too quiet.

So I acquired some alpacas from a very nice woman who had some breeders to retire. I just want fleece, so these ladies are perfect for me. They’ve surprised me with their constant travels around the farm several times a day. A pasture that held 3 horses and 7 alpacas, yet was still lush enough to cause problems, isn’t gonna have any trouble supporting 5 browsing elderly alpacas. I love the way they constantly nibble on the fence line. They are slowly eating down the brambles, roses and little trees that I had to have removed at quite a considerable expense.

Which brings me to the current project: I want a raised bed garden, one that doesn’t need constant weeding, one that will produce food for winter, herbs, berries and some fruit, too. We picked up our first load of woodchips, and the ladies got a nice layer for their leanto. I gave a small load to the chickens, but they need a lot more. Since this is a city of Elizabethtown perk to the people, we can get wood chips whenever we need them.

That’s likely to mean a trip a week for awhile. The goal is 4 raised garden beds. I want plenty of room to plant kitchen herbs, like garlic, onion, shallots, carrots and potatoes. Fall crops, to start, because it’s gonna take time to get all this set up. Then next spring, it wil be a snap to get it going.

As for why I’m going to all this trouble, well, I don’t live in a vacuum, and I’m quite worried about the near future. Not just for myself, but for the people around me, things are difficult and times are hard. I sell my eggs, and a few plants, at a Farmer’s Market. I plan to use that money to invest in the garden, to buy plants and trees. This garden spot is quite large, and I have plenty of room. It’s time to get it up and running, just in case things on the east coast get really, really weird this fall.

I’d like to garden organically, but my farmer neighbor uses more sprays than I can keep track of. He’s got the biggest sprayer I’ve ever seen, a monstrous device that has a 40’ wingspan.

Mothra has nothing on that big creature.

Everyone has to adapt to their environment. In their own way, and at their own time, so I’m adapting.

Senior in the Saddle - 3

It's been a year since I rounded up the courage to get back in the saddle. I went to Wild Rose Equestrian Center, and I've been going almost every week since. I'm so much stronger and more secure in the saddle. My seat isn't what it used to be, but my balance is much better.

I had several months with a very sweet horse who was willing to forgive my mistakes as I got back in shape. He's in the picture, a Morgan Halflinger cross. If I ever see another horse of his type of breeding, I'm gonna snap 'em up. The draft horse blood means an easy temper and makes for a nice strong horse with good gaits. I didn't understand why people are out crossing with draft breeds until I rode him. Now I get it. Quarter horses are more Thoroughbred than not, my horses were 3/4 TB and 7/8 TB respectively. The cold blood of the draft horse is a good counter balance to all that hot Thoroughbred blood.

Those first few months back in the saddle had me half-crazy with frustration. I didn't have the strength to do more than cling to the saddle. I couldn't make the right cues to get my lesson horse to do much. I felt old, weak and off-balance. But I made myself go, and in the process, figured out how to communicate with a horse again.

I'm still making mistakes, and have a hard time getting my lesson horses to do what I want. As my old instructors would say: "The problem isn't the horse." Still, I'm not a fan of riding without a bit. I have a lot of trouble with the modern hackmore. I'm used to a mild bit and a whole lot of contact with the horse's mouth. A Hackmore has no feel to it. It makes sense to use them indoors with beginners, but my brain says it's the same as riding with a halter, when it's not.

I had no idea, when I got started again, just how well behaved my old horses were. They were an extension of my hands and legs, but that's after 30 years of riding the same horses. We knew each other inside and out. They knew me so well, it was as if they read my mind.

Now I need to be more aware of what I'm doing and not doing. I still believe that being back in the saddle has been great for my mental health, as well as my physical health. I'm walking more, lifting more and doing more in a day because I get that mental lift once a week.

I'll check back in a few months.

The Enthropy in Travel

Oh the pretty cabins! Pretty, pretty cabins! I'm gonna travel to a national forest and stay in a pretty cabin with all the fun things a cabin should have. Hot tub! Fireplace! Back deck! Right on the lake, too!

See the picture? Yahoo! (No photo because I don't want to get sued for defamation.)

Here we go! Whip out the credit card and book that pretty cabin!

Problem is, that cabin isn't in the same place we are going, it's 250 miles away. But the SUPER EASY VACATION APP doesn't tell you where this pretty, pretty cabin is located until AFTER your money has been paid.

Where is it? 250 miles from the lakeside photo! Hot tub doesn't matter, you can't find the cabin from your original destination, because it's 5 hours away!

With one blissfully deceptive swipe of the credit card, our vacation has turned into a disaster, from which there is no recourse.

Kiss that $500 goodbye! Thanks SUPER EASY VACATION APP!

No, I'm not kidding. This is the second time this has happened. Traveling has never been simple, always got to be careful that the logistics are right. Right maps, right supplies, correct directions, proper clothing.

Yet increasingly, the very applications that are supposed to make things simple are becoming financial traps. I'm tech savvy, and I find that trusting the SUPER EASY VACATION APP to book accomodations is a sure fire way to get ripped off. It's a black hole into which my money goes, and the chance of getting a refund for a moment of in-attention is nil.

If I want to book a cabin inside a national forest, I have to call the Lodge to make sure I'm booking a real cabin. That's not easy, because the Lodge Staff just referred me to SUPER EASY VACATION APP!

Apps, applications, booking software, all that crap has made getting screwed out of your hard-earned money easier than ever.

The en-shitification of life, courtecy of Silcon Valley Tech Bros and Artificial Intelligence.

AI -- Making Reading Less Interesting

The more content I read these days, the more of this odd syntax shows up. A word or two, just odd or out of place will tell you that the content was AI generated. I've used Chat GPT for small bits of text that I don't want to write myself. It will churn out bland text that is grammatically correct. Things like book blurbs for 200 words or less. Hand it 500 words, and it cuts 300 out. But it doesn't produce interesting text. Servicable text. Useful text. Yes, but do we haunt the internet for that kind of text? Now, ask ChatGPT to produce text for gaming, and it will turn out a monster stat block with lightening speed. This is a great help, but it isn't fiction. Yet I keep hearing that authors are using AI to write their fiction books. I can't imagine what kind of vague, oatmeal-textured fiction it might be. But I can't imagine it being great, engaging fiction. Oatmeal is great stuff. I eat it for breakfast, when I need fast food and a lot of it. Something that will stick around until lunch on a busy day. Oatmeal flavored fiction might fill an e-book, but it won't engage a reader. This last month, I've clicked away from a number of articles on various websites, because the text was bland and uninteresting. I think it's possible that AI produced text is going to slowly make general internet surfing uninteresting. Which might be a good thing in the long term. The less time I spend online the better.